Rurouni Kenshin: The Final

[Drunk Monk]

This is the 4th installment of a pentalogy based on a manga. I've long heard tell of this franchise as being exceptional, and I wanted to start at the beginning, but part 4 here came up on Netflix, probably due to the pandemic affecting its box office earlier this year. Part 5 already came out too. But I might get a shot at the Action Director, Kenji Tanigaki, so I figured I'd better give it a peep.

It's long - Bollywood long - 2 hr 18 min. It took me three nights. 

It's also a loving homage to classic chanbara - beautifully framed, thoughtfully composed scenes, lots of snow, rain, ash, etc., floating through to give depth. 

There's a lot of backstory - 3 movies worth - and a lot of characters. Sometimes, I think the film was flashing back to arcs in the previous films, filling out the length. I was following it until a point when it just got to be too much and I kinda gave up. Too many characters to track. Some great villains with kick ass weapons. 

But let's talk about those sword fights. Killer sword fights. The action is next level. It's sped up and there's a ton of wire work, but ultimately Tanigaki achieves something fresh. These are comic book samurai/ronin fights, sanguineous and dynamic, very compelling. I rather enjoyed them.

DOOM recommended but it might be a fast forward to the fight scenes flick if you don't have 2+ hours to kill.

I definitely want to see the rest of the series now.